The Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTEL) are designed to measure a candidate's knowledge of the subject matter contained in the test objectives for each field. The MTEL are aligned with the Massachusetts educator licensure regulations and, as applicable, with the standards in the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks.

The test objectives specify the content to be covered on the test and are organized by major content subareas. The chart below shows the approximate percentage of the total test score derived from each of the subareas.

The test assesses a candidate's proficiency and depth of understanding of the subject at the level required for a baccalaureate major according to Massachusetts standards. Candidates are typically nearing completion of or have completed their undergraduate work when they take the test.

Sub area I 51%, Sub area II 17%, Sub area III 12%, and Sub area IV 20%.

Test Objectives

Table outlining test content and subject weighting by sub area and objective

Subareas

Range of Objectives

Approximate Test Weighting

Multiple-Choice

I

Literature and Language

01–09

51%

II

Rhetoric and Composition

10–12

17%

III

Reading Theory, Research, and Instruction

13–14

12%

80%

Open-Response*

IV

Integration of Knowledge and Understanding

15

20%

*The open-response items may relate to topics covered in any of the subareas.

Subarea I–Literature and Language

Objective 0001: Understand American literature from the colonial period through the end of
the nineteenth century.

For example: the significance of writers, works, and movements in the development of American literature from the colonial period through the end of the nineteenth century; changes in literary form and style in American literature; the characteristics of major literary periods in American literature (e.g., colonial, Revolutionary, Romantic, Renaissance, realism, Civil War, post–Civil War); the historical, social, and cultural contexts of American literature from the colonial period through the end of the nineteenth century; significant genres and themes in American literature from the colonial period through the end of the nineteenth century; and a range of American authors (e.g., John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, Phillis Wheatley, James Fenimore Cooper, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allan Poe, Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Kate Chopin, Henry James), their representative works and themes, and their significance in the development of American literature from the colonial period through the end of the nineteenth century.

Objective 0002: Understand American literature from the twentieth century to the present.

For example: the characteristics of diverse works of American fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama from the early twentieth century to the
present; the historical, social, and cultural contexts from which modern and contemporary American literature emerged; significant genres and themes
in modern and contemporary American literature; and a range of American authors (e.g., Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton,
Willa Cather, T. S. Eliot, Countee Cullen, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Eugene O'Neill, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ernest Hemingway, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, N. Scott Momaday, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Rudolfo Anaya, Amy Tan), their representative works and themes, and their significance in the development of American literature in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Objective 0003: Understand the literature of Great Britain from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Romantic period.

For example: the significance of writers, works, and movements in the development of the literature of Great Britain through the Romantic period;
the characteristics of major literary periods in the development of the literature of Great Britain (e.g., Anglo-Saxon, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Restoration and eighteenth-century, Romantic); the historical, social, and cultural contexts of the literature of Great Britain through the Romantic period; significant genres and themes in the literature of Great Britain from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Romantic period; and a range of authors and works from Great Britain (e.g., Beowulf, the Gawain poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, Sir Thomas Malory, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane Austen, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Lord Byron, John Keats) and their significance in the development of the literature of Great Britain from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Romantic period.

Objective 0004: Understand the literature of Great Britain from the Victorian period to the present.

For example: the characteristics of significant literary works of Great Britain from the Victorian period to the present; the historical, social, and cultural contexts of Victorian, modern, and contemporary literature of Great Britain; significant genres and themes in Victorian, modern, and contemporary literature of Great Britain; and a range of authors of Great Britain (e.g., Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Matthew Arnold, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Doris Lessing, Seamus Heaney), their representative works, and their significance in the development of the literature of Great Britain from the Victorian period to the present.

Objective 0005: Understand literature from the ancient world to the fifteenth century.

For example: the characteristics of major literary forms, works, and writers associated with literature of the ancient world (e.g., African, Asian, European, and Greek and Roman literature; the Bible; world myths and folk tales); the historical, social, and cultural contexts from which ancient world literature emerged; significant genres and themes in ancient world literature; a range of authors and works (e.g., the Gilgamesh epic, the Vedas, the Old and New Testaments, the Qur'an, Homer, Lao-Tzu, Sappho, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Virgil, Li Po, Murasaki Shikibu, Omar Khayyám, Rumi, Dante Alighieri) and their significance in the development of ancient world literature; historical, social, and cultural aspects of ancient world literature (e.g., the expression
of regional, ethnic, and historical values, archetypes, and ideas through literature; ways in which literary works and movements both reflected and shaped culture and history); and characteristics and significance of world mythology and folk literature.

Objective 0006: Understand world literature from the fifteenth century to the present.

For example: the characteristics of major literary forms, works, and writers associated with world literature (e.g., African, Asian, European, Latin American) from the fifteenth century to the present; the historical, social, and cultural contexts of world literature from the fifteenth century to the present; significant genres and themes in world literature from the fifteenth century
to the present; a range of authors (e.g., Michel de Montaigne, Miguel
de Cervantes Saavedra, Molière, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Leo Tolstoy, Feodor Dostoevski, Anton Chekhov, Rabindranath Tagore, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Federico García Lorca, Isak Dinesen, Albert Camus, Jorge Luis Borges, Primo Levi, Yehuda Amichai, Nadine Gordimer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Pablo Neruda, Czeslaw Milosz, Wole Soyinka, R. K. Narayan, Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, Naguib Mahfouz, Ōe Kenzaburō, V. S. Naipaul), their representative works, and their significance in world literature from the fifteenth century to the present; and social and cultural aspects of world literature from the fifteenth century to the present (e.g., the expression of regional, ethnic, and historical values; ways in which literary works and movements both reflect and shape culture and history).

Objective 0007: Understand the characteristics of various genres and types of literature.

Objective 0008: Understand literary theory and criticism.

For example: various critical approaches to literature (e.g., New Criticism, structuralism, deconstructionism, New Historicism, Marxist criticism, feminism, reader response); the role of major works in classical literary criticism and the theories associated with them; characteristics of neoclassic and Romantic literary theory as developed in major writings associated with each movement; and the use of various critical perspectives to analyze given literary passages.

Objective 0009: Understand the structure and development of the English language.

For example: structural features of languages (e.g., phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic); historical, social, cultural, and technological influences shaping English language structure and use; significant historical events influencing the development of the English language (e.g., Anglo-Saxon migrations; the Norman Conquest); and additions to the lexicon of the English language throughout its development (e.g., words from Latin and French, regional and social dialects in the United States, words derived from technology).

Subarea II–Rhetoric and Composition

Objective 0010: Understand principles of rhetoric as they apply to various forms and purposes of oral and written communication.

For example: the development of rhetoric from a classical art of persuasive oratory to a modern discipline concerned with the analysis and interpretation of spoken, written, and media communications; modern and contemporary theories of rhetoric; application of modern rhetorical principles (e.g., unity, coherence, emphasis) to produce a desired result in an audience; consideration of subject, subject knowledge, purpose, and audience
in producing a communication; use of appropriate arrangement and organization (e.g., logical ordering of ideas), style and tone (e.g., lexical choices, word order, cadence), and form of delivery; similarities and differences between language structures in spoken and written English;
how to interpret and apply English grammar and language conventions
in oral and written contexts; the role of cultural factors in oral and written communication; strategies for evaluating the content and effectiveness
of written and spoken messages; principles of effective speaking and listening for various purposes (e.g., for information and understanding, literary response and expression, critical analysis and persuasion, debate); and techniques for interpreting and analyzing media messages.

Objective 0011: Understand the composition process.

For example: strategies for writing effectively in a variety of forms and for
a variety of audiences, purposes, and contexts; processes for generating
and developing written texts (e.g., prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing); techniques for revising written texts to achieve clarity and economy of expression; revision of sentences to eliminate wordiness, ambiguity, and redundancy; development of a thesis; development of
an effective introduction and conclusion; effective use of topic sentences;
the role of voice and style in writing; effective use of figurative language; identification of logical fallacies; techniques for improving text organization; effective use of transitions to enhance the clarity of an argument; selection
of appropriate details to support an argument or opinion; applications of technology in all phases of the writing process; and the distinguishing features of various forms of writing (e.g., reflective essay, autobiographical narrative, editorial, memorandum, summary/abstract, argument, résumé, play, short story, poem, newspaper or journalistic article).

Objective 0012: Understand written language conventions.

For example: accurate use and effective application of written
language conventions (e.g., sentence and paragraph construction, spelling, punctuation, usage, grammatical expression); techniques for editing written texts to achieve conformity with conventions of standard English usage (e.g., revising sentences and passages to maintain parallel form; revising sentences to eliminate misplaced modifiers; editing written texts to eliminate errors in spelling and punctuation); and strategies for effective proofreading.

Subarea III–Reading Theory, Research, and Instruction

For example: basic processes of first- and second-language acquisition
and use; strategies to research word origins and analyze word formation
to understand meanings, derivations, and spellings; relationships among words (e.g., homonyms, synonyms, antonyms) and issues related to word choice (e.g., denotative and connotative meanings, multiple-meaning words); research-based theories relating to the reading process; word analysis
skills and strategies (e.g., phonics, syllabication, structural analysis);
use of semantic and syntactic cues to verify word meanings; the role of vocabulary skills and strategies in the development of reading proficiency; application of literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension skills; the
use of metacognitive techniques to monitor reading comprehension; the application of strategies before, during, and after reading to promote comprehension of expository texts (e.g., previewing and predicting, self-questioning, writing and discussing); the role of oral reading fluency in facilitating comprehension of texts; and ways in which text characteristics and purposes for reading determine the selection of reading strategies.

Objective 0014: Understand effective, research-based reading instruction and the role
of children's literature and young adult literature in promoting reading proficiency.

For example: research-based theories and practices relating to reading instruction; methods for planning, managing, and differentiating reading instruction to support students' reading development; the role of children's literature and young adult literature in promoting reading proficiency and motivating students to read independently; instructional strategies to promote development of particular reading skills (e.g., word analysis, vocabulary, comprehension); the adjustment of reading instruction based on ongoing assessment; strategies to promote independent reading; strategies for selecting and using meaningful reading materials at appropriate levels
of difficulty for all students; and uses of instructional technologies to
promote students' reading development.

Subarea IV–Integration of Knowledge and Understanding

Objective 0015: Prepare an organized, developed analysis on a topic related to one or more of the following: literature and language; rhetoric and composition; reading theory, research, and instruction.

For example: characteristics of various genres and types of literature; major authors, works, and movements in the literature of the United States, Great Britain, and the world; the historical, social, and cultural contexts from which ancient and modern literature emerged; literary theory and criticism; the structure and development of the English language; principles of rhetoric as they apply to various forms and purposes of communication; the composition process and conventions of writing; reading skills and comprehension; language acquisition; and theories and methods of reading instruction.